The invention relates to a process for the making and/or finishing of a crown wheel using a metal-cutting tool, said crown wheel being intended for mating with a predetermined cylindrical gear.
Various methods are known so far for the making of crown wheels. The first one which can be mentioned is a generating process, which can be carried out on known gear cutting machines which are provided with additional "right-angled" attachments. This method does, however, have limits as regards the dimensions of the crown wheels to be produced and the required accuracy. If very high-grade crown wheels have to be produced, these crown wheels have to undergo a hardening treatment and a finishing operation.
Another method is "spark erosion", as described, for example, in EP-A-No. This method has the disadvantage that spark erosion is a very time-consuming process. Besides, the spark erosion process affects the material properties of the toothing surface, so that in this case also a finishing operation is required for crown wheels where very strict standards have to be met.
The object of the present invention is then to produce a process with which roughly shaped crown wheels can be finished, said process also being suitable for producing the crown wheel.